Download article by Jude Isabella - UBC - University of British Columbia

The Kermode bear
by Jude Isabella, Victoria , British Columbia, Canada ([email protected])
Written for the Globe and Mail
It is called the White Spirit Bear or the kermode or sometimes even the Panda of
Canada. It is a rare animal that lives only on richly forested islands in coastal British
Columbia and must be protected, say environmentalists.
Maybe not. It has also been described as an albino throwback of the ubiquitous
and commonplace black bear, a profile that suits lumbermen who hanker after old-growth
timber. Indeed, through a quirk of genetics, most of them are black. While logging
companies and environmentalists argue over the value of Ursus americanus kermodei,
biologists are unable to resolve its place in science.
Between 800 and 1,200 of the bears, commonly called kermode, live in the area
and as many as 120 of them are white. They are found within what Wayne McCrory, a
biologist with the Valhalla Wilderness Society, considers the most viable area of the
kermode's "range." Other biologists, such as Tony Hamilton of the B.C. Ministry of
Environment, Lands and Parks, bite their tongues if they utter the word "range." It's a
term that denotes distinction and he suspects there's nothing biologically special about the
kermode. Mr. Hamilton is unconvinced that the white/black kermode is a subspecies of
the black bear and simply shares the same range as all black bears. What's more,
sightings of white black bears have been reported in northeastern B.C. and Minnesota, he
says. The real question, biologists say, is why white/black bears are mostly found on
B.C.'s coast. They are especially numerous on Gribbell Island, where almost 30 per cent
of the black bears are white. On better known Princess Royal, 10 per cent of them are
white.
What scientists do know for sure is that the bear is not an albino. Nor does its fur
change colour. The bear is born with a white coat -- a mother can have a black cub and a
white cub -- and dies with a white coat. That still doesn't make it a distinct species, a
claim first made in 1905 by a U.S. zoologist. In 1905, William Hornaday reported to the
New York Zoological Society that the bear was a species in its own right and set the
argument in motion. Even then, the Spirit Bear, as named by aboriginals, was the centre
of a tug-of-war.
Mr. Hornaday wanted a live animal for the zoo in New York, and to curry favour
with Francis Kermode, the director of the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria,
he named the "species" kermodei. Unfortunately for him, British Columbians were
already alert to American scientists trundling out their natural history and they scotched
the plan. When a young white female was captured at Butedale in 1924, the Provincial
Game Conservation Board stepped in and foiled a scheme to smuggle the bear over the
border. The bear lived out a lonely existence in a pen at Victoria's Beacon Hill Park and
died in 1948. Her captivity and death was not completely in vain. By then it had become
illegal to kill a white bear.
David Nagorsen, the museum's curator of mammals, says he still fields telephone
calls from Victorians who remember the captive bear. The bear's remains went into the
RBCM's kermode collection, which is probably the largest in North America. "The
subspecies kermode was based on very vague descriptions on a couple of subjective
traits," Mr. Nagorsen says, adding that biologists are yet to do detailed studies of genetic
or morphological variations. "I remain to be convinced that those bears are different,
other than having a higher incidence of the white colour phase."
He is not alone. As early as 1928, the Dr. E. Raymond Hall of the University of
California disagreed with a distinct-species status for the kermode. The white coat, he
wrote, was nothing more than a genetic polymorphism-like hair colour. The white coat
intrigues geneticists. By setting up wire between trees, or examining "rubbing" trees,
scientists collect hair for DNA analysis. A good sample is at least four hairs with the
roots. Tissue samples are also desirable, for different reasons. Kermode roadkills are a
good source, as was Old Gimpy, the unofficial mascot of Terrace, B.C., that a hunter shot
illegally a few years ago. By dying, Old Gimpy provided some answers about kermode
genetics. University of Victoria evolutionary biologist Dr. Tom Reimchen and colleagues
Drs. A. Byun and B. Koop studied DNA sequences from Old Gimpy. By comparing
mitochondrial DNA with black bears across the continent, Dr. Reimchen determined that
coastal black bears, from the Khutzeymateen region to northern Vancouver Island,
separated from the rest of North America's black bears 300,000 years ago.
Black bears have roamed the continent for at least half a million years. Research
also indicates that kermode and the black bears of Vancouver Island and Queen Charlotte
Islands all shared the same ancestor about 10,000 years ago. "That the white phase has
persisted for 10,000 years suggests an ecological advantage," Dr. Reimchen says. "I still
don't have any idea why the white phase is so common." The Tsimshian people call the
bear moksgm'ol -- the white bear put on the planet by the creator, to remind people of
when ice covered the land. Some suggest the white bear was more common during the
last glaciation. Scientifically, the idea is rather implausible.
A more likely explanation is separate evolution occurred after glaciers drove a
frozen wedge between the coastal bears and their continental cousins. The ice forced the
cousins south while the coastal bears sought refuge in such areas as the Queen Charlottes.
Dr. Reimchen postulates that four subspecies emerged when the ice sheets retreated, and
that one of the subspecies was the kermode. It's a view supported by many scientists,
including Tony Hamilton. The secret of the white coat remains a mystery and even
investigations into behavioural differences have turned up nothing other than Dr.
Reimchen's observations that adult black kermode seem to dominate encounters with
adult whites.
Genes may yet provide explanations. Population geneticist Dr. Kermit Ritland of
the University of British Columbia is teasing information from the white black bear. Like
other scientists, Dr. Ritland stresses that the white colour does not define the subspecies.
"It's likely to be involved with natural selection," he says. "The main thing is, you don't
want to increase migration of the [mainland] black bear, or vice versa." To his mind,
there are two populations of the bear -- island and mainland --and they differ in frequency
of a recessive gene that controls the white colour. If the two populations are mixed
together and random mating occurs, the frequency of the recessive phenotype -- the white
coat -- will decline.
This is is called the "washing" or swamping effect. The tenets of Darwinism say
the reason for a white coat is out there, even if it's obscure. Meanwhile, logging
companies are anxious to harvest all that lovely lumber. Which is all very well, but what
about the impact on the kermode?
Mr. McCory, the VWC biologist, a man who has probably seen and tracked more
Spirit Bears than anyone else living, believes he has the solution. For the past 13 years he
has worked on creating a sanctuary for the bears. With the help of U.S. zoologist Dr.
James Bergdahl, Mr. McCory has mapped out a viable ecosystem to serve as a zone safe
from loggers and errant rifles. The plan calls for a 250,000-hectare reserve to embrace
Princess Royal's large unlogged portion and a swath of adjacent mainland.
Unsurprisingly, it's the kind of prime old-growth forests that kermode favour.
"We know bears can survive a certain amount of logging," Mr. McCory says.
"But on smaller island systems, how much and in what areas?" Judging by current
logging practices, he says, the white Kermode will be in the same position as China's
panda in 200 years.